This report is focused around Lost and Found data using the intakes and outcomes data received for 2019 and 2020. Its goal is to reflect everything we could learn about L&F from the available data and highlight things that would be useful to show but some/all data required for them are missing.
Scroll down or use the table of contents on the left to navigate throughout the document. Most sections contain multiple tabs showing different facets of a data type. Most plots are interactive, meaning they include tooltips and allow hiding and showing parts and zooming in and out. If something went wrong, look for the house icon in the top right corner of each figure to reset.
This section provides an overview of the RTH rate per year divided by species. RTH Rate is calculated as the portion of returned animals that came in as strays out of stray animals. Animals younger than 6 weeks are excluded (this could be easily changed).
This table covers all strays and RTHs per year.
| Species | Year | Strays | RTH_Count | RTH_Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cat | 2019 | 7480 | 59 | 0.01 |
| Cat | 2020 | 4361 | 22 | 0.01 |
| Cat | 2021 | 2726 | 11 | 0.00 |
| Dog | 2019 | 9693 | 2095 | 0.22 |
| Dog | 2020 | 4604 | 695 | 0.15 |
| Dog | 2021 | 2245 | 349 | 0.16 |
| Other | 2019 | 139 | 12 | 0.09 |
| Other | 2020 | 99 | 2 | 0.02 |
| Other | 2021 | 64 | 4 | 0.06 |
This one only counts animals who came in as strays from the field (using subtype ‘ACO Pickup / Drop Off’ or ‘Stray-Agency’ – are these the right values to include?). These are then split by RTH method between field (using outcome_subtype ‘RTO Field’) and shelter (all other values).
Cats rates are negligible, and while the in-field return rate for dogs is steady, the shelter rate decreased from 2019 to 2020 and 2021.
| Species | Year | Field_Strays | RTH_Subtype | Field_RTH_Count | RTH_Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cat | 2019 | 1000 | Field Return | 8 | 0.01 |
| Cat | 2019 | 1000 | Shelter Return | 5 | 0.00 |
| Cat | 2020 | 844 | Field Return | 8 | 0.01 |
| Cat | 2020 | 844 | Shelter Return | 2 | 0.00 |
| Cat | 2021 | 598 | Field Return | 2 | 0.00 |
| Cat | 2021 | 598 | Shelter Return | 4 | 0.01 |
| Dog | 2019 | 5496 | Field Return | 227 | 0.04 |
| Dog | 2019 | 5496 | Shelter Return | 990 | 0.18 |
| Dog | 2020 | 3074 | Field Return | 115 | 0.04 |
| Dog | 2020 | 3074 | Shelter Return | 368 | 0.12 |
| Dog | 2021 | 1833 | Field Return | 79 | 0.04 |
| Dog | 2021 | 1833 | Shelter Return | 237 | 0.13 |
This shows RTH rates for OTC strays, which includes subtypes ‘Public Drop Off’ and ‘Possible Owner’. These rates also decline from 2019 to 2020 and further in 2021.
| Species | Year | OTC_Strays | Shelter_RTH | RTH_Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cat | 2019 | 4276 | 46 | 0.01 |
| Cat | 2020 | 1930 | 12 | 0.01 |
| Cat | 2021 | 1173 | 5 | 0.00 |
| Dog | 2019 | 4140 | 865 | 0.21 |
| Dog | 2020 | 1481 | 210 | 0.14 |
| Dog | 2021 | 401 | 32 | 0.08 |
These three time series show the RTH rate per month, to show whether there were times with particularly high or low rates as well as the overall trajectory.
Again, we start with all RTH (both field and shelter), for cats and dogs. For dogs, there is a clear decrease in the beginning of the pandemic to June 2020, an increase in July 2020 and then a zigzag of better or worse months.
This is the same figure, but only counting field strays, and showing only dogs due to cats’ low numbers. The different lines split the rate of return by Field RTH or in-shelter RTH, so in Jan 2019, for example, 29% of field stray intakes were returned in the shelter and an extra 2% were returned in the field.
The in-shelter RTH numbers zigzag a lot while moderately decreasing over time, while Field returns remain fairly stable except for a few particularly low (Aug 2019, Oct 2020, Dec 2020) and high (Nov 2020, Feb 2021) months.
This figure only counts strays who did not come from the field. Before the pandemic the rate was pretty unstable, going between peaks of 25% and lows of 15%, while starting March 2020 there was a sharp decrease to around 5% levels. Since then, however, there is a slow increase every month up to 11% in June 2021.
This section shows the number of stray intakes over time, as well as the breakdown of strays by field/shelter intake.
The trends for dogs and cats are very similar, except the more noticeable spike for cats in summer months.
Across all years, 39% of strays come the field (counting Stray-Agency and ACO) and the 46% over the counter. 13% of stray intakes were Sun City or Community cats, and other subtypes are very infrequent (1% and lower).
This could be another useful metrics to reflect the benefits of RTH over other outcome types. It takes into account three components:
Let’s look at dogs, as these very by and large most RTHs:
There were 2095 strays who got RTH in 2019, 695 in 2020, and 349 in 2021 (up to end of June). Assuming 30$ cost of daily care per dog, and given the length-of-stay differences, We can estimate that return-to-homes saved the shelter \(2095*30*17=1,068,450\$\) in 2019, \(695*30*17=351,900\$\) in 2020, and \(349*30*17=177,990\$\) in 2021.
Any additional RTH saves roughly $510, such that returning even an extra 10% of the stray intakes for 2021 would result in saving roughly $100,000.
| Species | Outcome | Count | Average_Length_Of_Stay | Median_Length_Of_Stay |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cat | Other Outcomes | 4608 | 26.00 | 11 |
| Cat | Return to Owner | 92 | 2.09 | 1 |
| Dog | Other Outcomes | 12485 | 31.25 | 18 |
| Dog | Return to Owner | 3041 | 2.55 | 1 |
This section uses the outcome files received for years 2017 and 2018, because they include both a found location AND an outcome address for each animal, unlike the more recent files we have (for which an outcome address was never requested, so it makes sense it is not there). These two data points mean we could find out how far away do dogs go from home when they get lost (and are found).
Across both these years, there were 848 strays who had an RTO outcome. Out of those, 764 dogs had usable addresses for both found and outcome locations, after excluding addresses that could not be easily converted to a precise location (common themes: ‘mile X of road Y’, ‘see memo’, ‘local canal’, or a missing value). For each dog, the listed intake address and owner addresses were geocoded (using Google’s geolocation service), and then the distance between the two points was calculated. Some addresses were geocoded incorrectly and were removed, as were dogs with a distance of more than 40 miles between the two points, which were few. Some of these can be corrected if needed. This filtering left a total of 704 dogs.
Of these dogs, 51% were found less than a mile away from home, and half of those (25% of all dogs) were found less than a block away from home. 20% of all dogs were found more than 5 miles away. The distribution of distances is shown in the following figure.
The map below shows the median distance walked by dogs found at each ZIP code, as well as the number of stray dogs found in it. The median is a better indicator in this case because even after removing strong outliers, some dogs who were found particularly far from home would skew the average distance. It looks like some
The following maps show stray intake and RTH rate by ZIP codes to highlight geographical patterns. The first and second tab are similar to previous metrics; the third tab, RTH Gap, shows the number of strays who were not returned home per ZIP code.
These maps use the 2017-2018 data because it is currently not possible to map the number of strays and rates of RTH per area in the more recent files, as there are no ZIP codes associated with each intake record. However, there is a crossing address, and we could work on cleaning these up and transforming them into a ZIP code or geolocation for mapping.
RTH Rate per ZIP code.
This combines the other two tabs to highlight where most additional RTH potential exists.
It is also not possible to show whether animals were found in their home ZIP code and whether finders found animals in their home location because these ZIP codes are not present.
Other things we could show if we had the data for it: